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Language Ideologies
I arrived at university a prescriptivist – as the type of person who muttered "number of" when anyone erroneously said "amount of", who wrote a grammar guide for her friends on Facebook, and who recalled, with pride, teaching her friends how to pronounce 'TH' properly. I will leave university a better, more accepting person, I believe. Each year, I have taken a module that has opened my eyes a little wider to the perils of practising prescriptivism, from Multilingualism to World Englishes, ultimately culminating with Attitudes to Language. Attitudes to Language As someone whose language is atypical, it seems strange to consider that there was ever a time when I firmly believed there was a right and a wrong way for others to use it (though perhaps my preoccupation with standardisation at all levels explains that away). Nevertheless, my autism report provided the starting point for what would form my final essay for Attitudes to Language. We spent a lot of time discussing the idea of standardisation, and how standardisation provides an ill-founded basis, but a basis people use nonetheless, for prejudiced and discriminatory attitudes. With this in mind, I decided to take a risk and explore how autistic language is represented in public discourse. As language can shape our view of the world, the language we use can shape others' attitudes towards us, and so attitudes towards autistic people are often also attitudes towards their language. I semi-regularly hear some version of the following attitudes: I would never have guessed you were autistic with how you're talking to me now. Use your words. You must be pretty high functioning; you get my sarcasm! And so I scoured the literature for comments on the diagnostic criteria for autism. My hunch was that if the diagnostic criteria is built in relation to typical language use, then there is an argument to be made about the influence of a standard English ideology in the formation of attitudes towards autistic people. You can only do something wrong if there is an accepted right to begin with. Impairments are only impairments relative to what is considered the standard. Belkadi (2006)Belkadi, A. (2006) Language impairements in autism: evidence against mindblindness. In SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics. Vol. 14, pp. 3–13. – in a paper titled “Language Impairments in Autism: Evidence Against Mindblindness” – categorises these impairments as the following: “deficits in comprehension, in particular (i) a low understanding of non-literal sequences such as metaphors, jokes or irony; (ii) a poor''' '''command of indirect speech acts such as questions (Aarons & Gittens, 1999) and (iii) difficulties''' '''with presuppositions' '''and other conversational conventions such as politeness, turn-taking or ‘levels of formality’” (emphasis added) As an autistic person reading this, it makes me somewhat frustrated. According to the medical model of autism, my very existence is rooted in deficit. Almost everything we do as social beings relies on language, and so if my ''language is impaired, then most of my doings will be impaired. Language and Identities Many health organisations use person-first language when speaking about autism. This stems from a well-meaning place, and implies that we are people before anything else – but the "anything else" is usually only reserved for negative things. And so, I am a keen advocate for identity-first language when it comes to autism. Because I don't have an affliction. I AM female, not a person with female-ness. I AM queer, not a person with queerness. I AM happy, not a person with happiness. I AM autistic. NOT a person with autism. For better or worse, all of these things play a major role in how I interact with the world and it with me and are inextricable from who I am. This is the general consensus among the autistic community and makes for an interesting discussion on how the identities of autistic people are constructed through the use of language (both their own and others). My feelings towards person-first language are similar to how I feel about the word "gay" being used as an insult. It suddenly feels like something negative BECAUSE of the reasons behind person-first language. If we are referred to as "having autism" then it suggests we can be cured or treated, and this mindset has led to the abuse and death of many autisticsAutism-memorial.livejournal.com. (2017) Autism Memorial. online Available at: http://autism-memorial.livejournal.com 4 May 2017.McVeigh, T. (2017) Half of autistic adults 'abused by someone they trusted as a friend'. online the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/14/autistic-adults-abused-by-friends-survey 4 May 2017.. Identity-First Autistic states that "our words are only one of the many things that need to change before we can have a fair and inclusive societyIdentity-First Autistic. (2017) Identity-First Autistic. online Available at: https://www.identityfirstautistic.org/important 4 May 2017." and so identity-first language is therefore a means by which the autistic community can reclaim agency as human beings in charge of their own lives. __FORCETOC__